Tras lograr el objetivo aparentemente imposible de unificar a las belicosas polis macht en una sola nación, el genio militar de Corvus se dirige al otro lado del mar. Allí se extiende el vasto Imperio asurio, una antiquísima civilización cuyo poder han padecido los macht durante siglos. Pero hoy, Corvus se propone invertir las tornas y llevar la guerra de conquista al corazón del Imperio.
Rictus, el lugarteniente de Corvus, conoce bien el Imperio: en su juventud lideró la retirada de los Diez Mil, una hazaña épica cuyos ecos resuenan en la historia. Ahora, unido a Corvus, realizará el camino inverso en condiciones muy diferentes: con un ejército bien pertrechado e inspirado por un rey carismático.
Pero el viejo Imperio, aunque lento en moverse, tiene a su disposición un gigantesco poderío militar, y bien puede estar dejando internarse a la hueste macht sin presentar demasiada resistencia para luego cerrar bruscamente la trampa sobre ella, y así poner fin a los sueños de conquista del prodigioso Corvus.

Most of us today are well travelled. The average ancient Greek or Roman was not. However, Greek domination spread as far as India and the Romans wore silks from China. The Carthaginians (remember them) traded along west Africa. I mention them because as far as I can tell they were a significant part of the pre-Roman dominated Mediterranean world and had some aspects of Hellenistic culture. This world was not white as such and I doubt black was an issue to many. They all fought each other and conquered many other peoples. The Carthaginians were destroyed by Rome as they had humiliated them and were seen to be a continual potential threat. The Etruscans were a part of this world too, and are a bit of a mystery. It is thought they may have originated in Asia Minor. All these societies had an effect on each other - especially the big players Rome, Greece, Carthage. This is known, so I can't see why people need to superimpose modern ideas of world society on this part of history.

Out the other side of the timeline it is strongly arguable that the real inheritors of Rome were the Byzantine Greeks (who incidentally thought of themselves as Romans) and the Islamic inheritors of their territory, such as the Ottomans (whose sultan included the title Kayser-i rum - Caesar of the Romans) among his titles .... rather than the western Europeans who are generally portrayed as the inheritors of Roman Civilization. Our western European roman inheritance came via the Holy Roman Empire led largely by the Franks. The political split between Byzantium and Rome soon developed into a cultural and religious divide (1050s) so much so that it led to the disgraceful and disastrous sacking of Byzantium by the 4th Crusade following years of wars in what is now Croatia and its surroundings.

The Spartans were multi-culturalist...NO! Greek society denigrated the outside work as barbarian, the root of the word refers to the Greek's thinking all outside languages sounded like "bar-bar". Herodotus' histories is a template for Greeks to understand the world outside Greece and how the Persian wars came about and how they became involved with the world outside..for the first time. There were more Greeks living in Ionia (coastal Turkey) than "mainland" Greece and a Greek population greater again living in Magna Graecia, Sicily and southern Italy. Greek Ionia and Greek Magna Graecia had as big an influence on Greek culture as mainland Greece.

Even you’re familiar with Xenophon’s Anabasis, it’s stil a great read. Did you know that Xenophon's Anabasis sat next to Alexander's bed as it was the main source of what to expect as he "went up" into Persia? Did you know that before Xenophon took the 10,000 mercenaries into Persia the Greeks had little if no idea what interior Asia was like? This hardly implies a multi-cultural Greek society.

For all Alexander's attempt to make the Macedonian army "integrate" with the Persians it was the Greek culture following Alexander (Corvus) the defined the Hellenic world in the middle east and onto India and Afghanistan. If anything it was the Romans who were desperate to adopt Greek culture. and once the eastern Hellenic states of Seleucid Syria and Ptolomaic Egypt were conquered by Rome one could say that the Roman empire gradually became more and more (Hellenic) Greek, especially with the distinctly Hellenic Hadrian and finally ending in the Byzantine state which although calling itself Roman spoke Greek at its imperial language. I've always found it odd, and somewhat contrived, how traditional scholars want to take the Greeks and Romans and look West, rather than East. The Greek world was profoundly tied to the Mediterranean as a whole in all directions, full of cultures already very old by the time Greeks turned up. The notion that the early Greek invasions came out of north/central Europe does not (as far as I've ever read) synchronise with what we know about the first push of blonde/fair-skinned migrations out of Asia and into the Northern/Easter European planes, which don't seem to have really got going until centuries later. The Romans were obsessed with the East, and dealt with the West only out of necessity. They conquered Iberia to keep resources from falling into Carthage's hands. The conquered Gaul because Caesar needed to boost his reputation and amass the biggest army possible while away from Rome (his counterpart Crassus got the much more attractive and potentially lucrative posting in the East). And Britain was only conquered for show and bragging rights back in Rome, and even then the locals were never Romanised the way the Gauls were (Roman settlements in Britain retained the need for defensive walls throughout the Roman occupation, unlike settlements in Gaul).

I don't think Alexander the Great was setting a precedent when he went East - I think he was acting on cultural memory, that something older needed to be rediscovered and conquered. And for three hundred years after his death, huge swathes of the middle east (right up to the Steppes and Afghanistan) were part of a Hellenic empire. A millennium later, Byzantium would have taken Christianity East, and was in the process of doing so when Islam erupted out of Arabia. So I don't think any civilisation could really exist in the Mediterranean without being drawn East. It also stands to reason that this traffic went both ways!

I could go on ... but you should read Kearney’s Macht trilogy. Really. Even if you know your Greek history. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2016/11/review-of-kings-of-morning-by-paul.html ( )

The final book in The Macht trilogy completes a saga that began with the tale of ten thousand mercenaries in The Ten Thousand, continued with Corvus and now completed with Kings of Morning. This is a fantasy series that contains no spells, magicians or magic save that of the Curse of God armour that a few select Macht wear. Those that were the Curse of God are called 'Cursebearer' after the cuirass they wear. This lightweight armour is is impervious to all weapons, does not reflect light and molds itself to the wearer
..."clicked down the wings over his shoulders and stood, shocked, as the armour moulded to his shape, extending to fit his long torso.
'Bel's blood' - it is alive!'
'No-it's just a piece of craft we don't understand. Men made these things once, but then forgot how'.
'I thought your goddess gifted them to the Macht'.
Rictus shrugged, 'Call me cynical' "

This epic is all one long battle starting and ending with Rictus the young boy who witnessed his home city destroyed and ransacked. He joins the mercenary army Macht army, looking for somewhere to belong and give meaning to the deaths of his family and destruction of all he new.
Parts of the series remind me of the Black Company series by Glen Cook. They share the gritty reality of bronze age warfare, the dirt, dust and smell of army's marching and dying. They differ in that The Black company is mostly from the lower ranks POV, whereas The Macht is seen primarily from the leaders POV. Everything is seen from the soldiers view point, the general population who feed, clothe and arm these men are props to keep the army and story flowing.

Why do they fight, continue to give battle when peaceful coexistence is possible, is touched upon but not fully explored. It just seems that some men are born to fight the rest fish or farm, and even these are not safe from being pressed into service when the rulers demand it. Slavery is commonplace, slaves are mostly captured or born to slavery. There is a minor plot point concerning a subjugated people who are all slaves. This is not turned into a major theme. Both sides use and abuse the slaves with few exceptions. The plight of the women is even worse. Not a time in history to be women, rich or poor.

This is a well written, plot driven, epic series. There is some attempt at supplying depths to the characters, but in the whole they are ciphers propping up the plot. ( )